Ione Belarra speaks at a United We Can rally in Seville. A woman from the audience stands up. He interrupts her, asking if she knows what a mother is.. The leader of Podemos tempers, answers, tries to overcome the setback. There is expectation in your team. He looks in silence, answers without raising his tone and resumes as if nothing had happened.. Podemos is facing its first national campaign led by a woman, with a Pablo Iglesias more disappeared in rallies than imagined and holding up in the polls, surprising even the PSOE.
The purple ones are managing to gain focus thanks to harsh measures to polarize, while they trust that “it can be won”, in reference not to their victory but to the sum with the socialists to retain fiefdoms and even assault new ones. “There is a game, there is no discouragement,” they say in the training engine room.
Within Podemos, as also happened in the PSOE, concern arose when the controversy arose over the inclusion in Bildu's lists of 44 convicted of terrorism, seven of them with blood crimes.. “It was unnecessary, an own goal by Bildu that gives the right the opportunity to talk about ETA again,” they point out from the purple dome. The campaign strategies were conditioned. “There was a need to turn the issues toward where we can go on offense and win.”
And that is where Podemos is sowing. In proposals that become the subject of debate. That generate discussion. In recent days, the purples have proposed doubling the extraordinary tax on banks that the Government established at the end of 2022, which would go from 4.8% to 9.6%; the need to launch a public chain of supermarkets that lowers the price of the shopping cart; Belarra demanded from the PSOE that the unemployed, IMV recipients and their families, people with disabilities and young people can also access the cinema for 2 euros like those over 65; they want to prohibit by law financing electoral campaigns with bank loans; and the leader of Podemos announced an initiative by her party to reform the Criminal Code to persecute Desokupa and punish its members with up to 4 years in prison.
A focus that they are also achieving through actions such as the shirt with the photo of Díaz Ayuso's brother with which Belarra appeared this week at the government control session or the viral video in which a lady asks Irene Montero how she has been able to buy the villa in which he lives, to which the Minister of Equality responds that because of the inheritance received after the death of his father and his work and that of Pablo Iglesias.
Belarra supported her candidate for mayor of Seville, Susana Hornillo, on Thursday, but Podemos is turning more to the regional candidacies than to the municipal ones, because they consider that they have a “stronger” presence and significance.. Both the PSOE and Podemos believe that the Botanic Pact can be reissued in Valencia to govern; that there will be the first coalition in Extremadura; They see it as feasible to join the PRC in Cantabria, but with the PSOE governing; and the coalition government is hopeful that if Podemos enters the Madrid City Council there will be options to remove Almeida from power. “They are holding up very well”, they assess from Ferraz about the situation of Podemos. Another of his objectives is to enter the Madrid Assembly with force to prevent an absolute majority for Ayuso.
Conversation with the PSOE
The purples have wanted to make these elections to 28-M a kind of “plebiscite” on housing, taking advantage of the momentum of the final approval of the law this week in the Senate. The initiative to personally persecute Desokupa, promoted by Podemos and not by the Government, also falls within this framework.
In her commitment to make herself visible and maintain the pulse of Podemos, Belarra has not hesitated to demand improvements and changes to the PSOE in some of the measures that Pedro Sánchez has been announcing in the PSOE acts, which are later promoted by the Council of Ministers, with the objective of mobilizing their own. They consider in Podemos that they are measures made in a “hurry” and “without hitting the key” of issues that become campaign issues. In fact, faced with this scenario, Belarra spoke with Minister Félix Bolaños -they are the ones who speak on both sides- to try to agree on and focus on a strategy that would allow both parties to hit the mark.. But Sanchez keeps announcing measures without even consulting them with his government partners.
The campaign is making visible, as of today, a Podemos that is holding its own and a Belarra who is consolidating her figure as leader of Podemos, freeing herself from the shadow of Iglesias. “She is in a natural progression. It is being seen what has been reaping in recent months,” they analyze from the purple dome.
There is another factor that Podemos considers important: the internal truce with Diaz in these weeks. That has relieved pressure. “Now the cards are face up, we are calmer,” they say in the purple leadership, where they believe their goal of the second vice president to campaign this 28-M and also support Podemos candidates has been achieved.